Essay on Tayeb Salih's A Handful of Tales: A Grandfather's Impact on a Young Boy

Tayeb Salih's story "A handful of tales" gives a narration of his childhood and his feelings towards his grandfather. As a young boy, the author had a strong connection with his grandfather and adored him. Nevertheless, the boy's feelings diminished as he realized that his role model lacked empathy. Despite being attracted to his grandfather, the boy's feelings towards him diminish over time as he observes his grandfather's lack of compassion and greed concerning how he treated Masoud.

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At the beginning of the story, the boy has great admiration for his grandfather. The boy always accompanied his everywhere grandfather due to his compassion towards him. He writes. "the strange thing is that I never went out with my father, rather it was my grandfather who would take me with him everywhere he went." The above proves that his grandfather was fond of him. Additionally, the boy was more attracted to the old man since he was his favorite grandchild. The author narrates "I believe I was his favorite grandchild, for my cousins were a stupid bunch."

In the middle of the story, the boy developed mixed reactions about his grandfather's lack of empathy. The boy starts disliking his grandfather because of his coldness, hatred, and greed towards Masood and his property. He wished his grandfather "wouldn't do what he'd said!" The boy pity for Masood as he was being disinherited by his grandfather. As they were harvesting child sympathized with Masood's situation. He spent all day observing him claiming, "I found for some reason watching Masood." The above shows that the boy had developed feelings towards Masood due to pity and had less admiration of his grandfather who remained sited throughout the harvest.

At the end of the story, the boy disliked his grandfather. He observed his true character, which was diminished of humanity, compassion, or empathy. Masood got no share of the produce albeit it being his own, yet his grandfather was bold enough to tell him "you still fifty pounds in debt to me, we'll talk about that later." The boy was pained by the words and wanted to console his neighbor. Additionally, he instantly disliked his grandfather t the extent of running away. He narrates "I ran off into the distance. I felt at the moment that I hated him." The child hated his grandfather's poor treatment towards Masood to a point that he ran off to distance himself from him and his actions.

Conclusion

Overall, I feel the boy changed as a person from the beginning of the story to the end. Notably, he learned that humanity is about compassion, kindness, and helping each other as opposed to hatred and greed for material possessions. I would not say he has come of age; instead, he has started to come of age. In this case, he starts to understand the difference between good and bad that is why he ran off from his grandfather after the final incident. However, he is not of age because he does not understand that issues in the world are not controlled by emotions entirely.